Luke 17:7-10 And which of you, having a servant plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and sit down to eat’?8 But will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for my supper, and gird yourself and serve me till I have eaten and drunk, and afterward you will eat and drink’?9 Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not.10 So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.’”

I read this today in my devotions and was taken aback. Jesus gives us the example of a servant who goes out and plows the fields, tends the sheep, works and sweats all day and when it's lunch time he doesn't even get a break. He has to put on his apron and go make lunch for his master and then after his master is full he can sit down and eat what is left and he doesn't even get a thank you for what he did. Then Jesus says that even as spiritual servants of God, we are going to work and sweat for Him and His kingdom but even after all that we do we are still going to say to ourselves, "we are unprofitable servants". Why??? At first glance this sounded like abuse to me, it seemed unfair. What is Jesus' point here?

After doing some study I began to realize what Christ is trying to teach us. The point of the matter is, God doesn't owe us anything. We don't deserve even a thank you for what we do for Him. We can win thousands to Christ, work and sweat to build His kingdom and we will still be "unprofitable servants". Why? Because we owe Him everything and He owes us nothing. It is our DUTY to serve Him. We can never pay back our debt to Christ for what He did for us on the cross. He gave His life, His blood, His all. It is only my duty to give Him my all in service. God will never be indebted to us, but we will always be indebted to Him. Even if I were to win a million souls to Christ, all of my work would seem unprofitable, like a drop in the bucket compared to what God has done for me. God doesn't need anybody, but we sure do need Him. I may never hear a thank you from His lips but I sure do want to hear, "Well done thou good and faithful servant".

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Praising God for an awesome weekend revival at Tiloarque. The Lord really helped Cruz and Israel as they ministered. Sunday morning Cruz preached a powerful message on total consecration. The altar was lined with seekers!! The services were well attended, we had people come from all three of our churches, some were there from Las Delicias for the very first time!! It was so neat to see our churches come together like that.

Everyone enjoyed the fellowship. There was a real spirit of unity.

Pastor Israel came in from San Pedro Sula to do the singing. He did a fantastic job. On Sunday afternoon he did a little mini concert in the church for about an hour. The people really enjoyed his singing.

Cruz Perez preached the Word with power and anointing.

On Saturday afternoon we were invited to attend Jireth's birthday party. She is one of our church girls who turned two. Her mother asked Hannah if she would make a cake with a Dora theme. Here is what she came up with. Dora is at the top making a painting. There is a gummy crocodile in the lake below. The kids really loved it!

The birthday girl Jireth.

Can't forget the piñata.

Sunday was an all day deal. We had service at 10:00 a.m. and then everybody stayed for dinner "on the grounds". Then at 2:30 p.m. Israel had an hour long concert and then at 4:00 p.m. was our evening service. It was a long day but a blessed one.

Here is where all the action was happening. The ladies served rice and chicken, rolls and salad. Mmmmm sooo good!!

Thanks to everyone who prayed for these special services. We definitely felt God's help and it was a real blessing!

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It's hard to believe that our Tiloarque church has kept it's doors open now for four years!! This weekend we are celebrating our church anniversary with a revival. Cruz Perez, an H.I.M. pastor from Guatemala will be the special speaker. This will be his first time to minister here in Tegucigalpa. Services will be held Friday thru Sunday afternoon. We would appreciate your prayers that God would settle down in our services and convict sinners, sanctify believers, and just have His will done.

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It's been very encouraging to see how God is working in Las Delicias. We have had several families ask to hold services in their homes. So each week we go to somebody's house for the service. We have been averaging around 40 people at each meeting. Here is a picture of some them gathering in this past Thursday.

Bro. Baudilio leading the service. Baudilio never learned to read and write and for the longest time he was always too afraid to lead the services. But over the last few months he has stepped up and started to help out more in the services and now he loves it!! He has been doing a great job.

Monday was Father's Day in Honduras. So we took a cake to share with everyone after church.

The Tiloarque gave money to buy gifts for all the father's in the three churches. Here are the father's with their coffee cups and bags of candy. They were so appreciative. They acted like we had given them a block of gold. They probably had never received gifts like this before.

On Friday we celebrated Father's Day with the guys from Las Uvas and Tiloarque churches. We converted our living room into a banquet hall and Hannah cooked a fabulous spaghetti dinner with a fully loaded salad and garlic bread. Mmmmm sooo good.

Hannah made napkin "shirts" for each place setting, and ties for each cup. The hats on the table were given out as door prizes. (Hannah is hyperventilating and begging me to put a disclaimer here and say she apologizes for the mismatching napkins and bowls. They didn't have them in the same color and this was the best we could come up with)

Some more of the decorations she had on the table.

We served them buffet style.

There were 10 father's present including myself. We had a really good time chatting, sharing our testimonies and just having a good time.

Baudilio was one of the hat winners. He looks pretty good in it.

Hannah did an awesome job on the banquet, I was very proud of her!!! Thanks Hannah for all you do!!

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For a long time now, Joseph has been wanting to go with me to Las Delicias and help work. Well, that day finally arrived this past Saturday. I was a little worried as to how well he was going to hold up in the hot sun but he really did a great job and helped quite a bit.

He helped me wet down the molds so we could start filling them with mud.

He even brought a pack lunch with him. Talk about a hard workin' man! haha.

We made 192 adobes! I believe this will be the last batch to finish up the church. We have one and a half more rows to put on and then we can start on the roof!!

This is Joseph's little house that he made out of some old adobes. He is sitting on the "couch".

Filthy from head to toe. This is what he was looking like by lunch time.

Trying to get scrubbed up before eating lunch.

We caught some tad poles out of the pond to take home and raise. We were really excited and looking forward to watching them grow legs but by the next day they were all dead.

One of the guys wanted to catch a turtle out of the pond and take it home as a pet. Well they caught a turtle and they also caught this fish. They call it a "dirty fish" because of the spots on it's sides. They fried it up for us before heading it. It was pretty good.

Two very dirty, tired, sun-burned guys. Oh but what fun it was being together!

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Today was another work day in Las Delicias. We need to put one and a half more rows of adobes and we will be ready to start working on the roof. But today we ran out of adobes and it will take us probably another two weeks to make another 200 and have them dried and ready to use. But at least the end is in sight.

The people are anxious to help and are excited that they are going to have their own church. Some of the ladies came today to help haul water for mixing mud. It was a big help.

Even the kids were excited to help out.

A bird's eye view of the work.

Roberto has been on site just about every Saturday since day 1. He is a hard worker!!

The people were telling me about some really sweet watermelons that were for sale at a nearby farm. They all wanted to go so we drove down to buy some watermelons for .50 a piece!!Mmmmm and were they ever good!

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My schedule has been really hectic lately. We hadn't spent a whole day together as a family for quite awhile and I felt it was about time we did so we went and had a picnic at a park. They offer horse rides where we went, Joseph had never ridden a horse so I figured today was as good as any for a first ride. It was a lot of fun! It was like being a real cowboy!

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Last Saturday after doing some work on the Delicias church a few of us guys went out to this pond to do some net fishing. Now I love to fish and it had been a long time since I got the chance so I was pretty excited to go with them. The only thing was is that they were going to net fish since they don't have rods and reels. That was a whole new experience but a lot of fun. I only got one small fish after a few tosses so I left them handle the nets and I carried the fish. haha.

One method was to set up a trap with the nets while another guy comes along smacking and splashing the water to scare the fish into the nets. This was the least successful method.

The bottom border of the net is weighted down to make it sink quicker into the water. The most successful method was walking through the pond casting the net. They pulled out some real whoppers!! I couldn't help but think of Jesus when He said, "follow me and I will make you fishers of men". Thinking about the different ways they tried to fish I can't help but relate it to ministry. Setting up traps and trying to scare people into repentance just is not a very effective method of reaching people. But with the solid preaching of the gospel and with lots of love we can usually see some real trophies of grace won to Christ.

We took home about 20lbs. of fish that day and oh man were they delicious!!!!

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About

We are working in Tegucigalpa, Honduras with Hope International Missions. Our primary efforts involve church planting and discipleship. God has blessed us with three small churches, one is located at our home in the neighborhood of Tiloarque. The other church is about 15 minutes from our home in a neighborhood called Las Uvas. The third church is about an hour and a half from our home in a village called Las Delicias.
I am a graduate of Penn View Bible Institute located in Central Pennsylvania. I graduated in 2004 from the institute while I was also youth pastor at the Beavertown God's Missionary Church. I was married to Hannah Jarasat in June 2004. After spending three years as youth pastor, Hannah and I joined Hope International Missions and arrived in Honduras in 2006. We are blessed with two boys, Joseph and Daniel.